NASA has given its okay to SpaceX’s Dragon abort system design for manned launches.
When Elon Musk gave his speech at the National Press Club on September 29, he was asked one question to which he really did not know the answer. He faked it, but his response illustrated how completely forgotten is one fundamental fact about American society — even though this fact is the very reason the United States became the world’s most wealthy and powerful nation less than two centuries after its founding.
To explain this fundamental fact I think I need to take a step back and talk about the ongoing war taking place right now over how the United States should get its astronauts into space. On one side we have NASA and Congress, who want NASA to build a new heavy-lift rocket to carry its Orion capsule beyond Earth orbit. On the other side we have a host of independent new space companies, all vying for the chance to launch humans and cargo into space for fun and profit.
Which is right? What system should the United State choose?
» Read more
First Soyuz rocket launch from South America scrubbed.
Boeing’s private space capsule has passed its wind tunnel tests.
How NASA’s bureaucracy intends to maintain control over space exploration. More here.
GAO and SpaceX blast the military’s plans to spend $15 billion for all its launches through 2018, in one bulk purchase.
The reason given by the military for buying all these launches up front is to save money. In reality, it is to favor the companies they want to do business with, rather than open up the business to as many competitors as possible.
More Russian space news: They plan to stick with ISS through 2028.
Using images from Japanese and American lunar orbiters, the Russians are looking at lunar caves to build Moon bases by 2030.
More details about SpaceShipTwo’s last test flight and the initial stall after its release from WhiteKnightTwo.
The designer of the spy satellite KH-9 HEXAGON (more generally known by its nickname “Big Bird”) has finally been able to describe his life’s work.
What surprised me most from this story is the fact that HEXAGON used film to record its images, not some form of digital or electronic technology. The film was returned to Earth in four “re-entry buckets” that were snatched out of the air by a modified C-130 airplane. I had assumed that by the time HEXAGON was launched they had abandoned film. Not so.
Robot gas attendants could keep old satellites chugging.
MDA has a contract, and a good design. If they succeed in refueling an old communications satellite with a robot, it will be fundamentally change the launch industry. If satellites don’t have to be replaced as often, there will less need for launches, reducing the demand for rockets.
In an editorial yesterday Space News suggested that Congress use the billions it is allocating for NASA’s heavy-lift rocket to fund the James Webb Space Telescope instead.
This is not surprising. Webb already has a strong constiuency (astronomers, the public) while the Space Launch System has little support outside of Congress and the specific aerospace contractors who want the work. With tight budgets as far as the eye can see into the future, and the likelihood that Congress is going to become more fiscal conservative after the next election, it would not shock me in the slightest if SLS gets eliminated and the money is given to Webb. And if the SpaceX and Orbital Sciences cargo missions to ISS go well then cutting SLS would almost be a certainty, as this success would demonstrate that these private companies should be able to replace SLS for a tenth of the cost.
And I also think this would be a much wiser use of the taxpayers money.
Success for India: Its PSLV rocket yesterday lifted four satellites into orbit.
The defunct 2.4 ton ROSAT space telescope is now predicted to crash to Earth sometime between October 20 and October 25.
Dream Chaser, Sierra Nevada’s space plane, is to get its first test flight this coming summer.
For the unmanned test flight, it will be carried into the skies by WhiteKnightTwo, the carrier aircraft for the commercial suborbital passenger ship SpaceShipTwo, backed by Virgin Galactic, a U.S. company owned by Richard Branson’s London-based Virgin Group.
An update, with pictures, from Orbital Sciences on the launchpad and assembly work leading to the first test flight of the Taurus 2 rocket.
London to Tokyo in ninety minutes, via space.
As much as I want every space tourism company to succeed, I’ll believe this story only when I see it.
I find this quote interesting:
When the status of the city was designated [after the fall of the Soviet Union], the leased Baikonur was monitored by two Interior Ministries, two prosecutors’ offices and two state security organs. But social problems have not disappeared. Engineers and astronauts are not the only ones who live in the city. Baikonur hosts a great deal of people who have local residence papers, including the indigenous Kazakhs. They cannot work on Baikonur objects because mostly Russians are hired to work there. If the Kazakhs are lucky enough to be hired, they are paid far less than the Russians.
In June of this year mass uprisings occurred in Baikonur. A crowd of youths pelted a police patrol car with stones and bottles.
Got $50,000 for the good faith deposit? Then you can bid on remaining assets of Rocketplane Kistler, to be auctioned off on November 11.
Getting to the right orbit, the hard way.
Video: How to build a Soyuz rocket.
More Russian space industry news: Russia puts off building a space lab while announcing that it will use its Soyuz 2 rocket to launch manned missions from its new spaceport in the Vostochny spaceport in Amur, to be opened in 2015.
Anik F2 communications satellite is back in operation.
If all goes well, 2012 will be a busy year at ISS for both Dragon and Cygnus.
The article outlines the preliminary cargo schedule for both ferries next year, assuming their initial test flights succeed (a big assumption).
Russia has dropped its plans to build a replacement for its Soyuz rocket.
This is not the first time that the Russians have abandoned plans to come up with a new rocket, which suggests once again that — as successful as their space effort has been — they lack the ability to come up with new product. This in turn makes vulnerable the Russians’ market share in commercial space.
A shutdown of a satellite today cut communications in Canada for thousands.
Astronauts on ISS have been conducting regular eye exams in an effort to understand the eye problems caused by long term weightlessness.
More on making the X-37B an ISS supply and crew ferry.
Want to become an astronaut? NASA requires you to speak Russian.
A new Arianespace rocket starts its journey to French Guiana.
This first launch, the Vega qualification flight, is planned for January 2012 and will pave the way for five missions that aim to demonstrate the system’s flexibility. . . . Vega is compatible with payload masses ranging from 300 kg to 2500 kg, depending on the type and altitude of the orbit required by the customers. The benchmark is for 1500 kg into a 700 km-altitude polar orbit.
This rocket is comparable to SpaceX’s now discontinued Falcon 1, though it can put more payload into orbit.
